Tag Archives: transportation

Yesterday was quite an exciting time for me, as I led a group of 20 other people on an 8-mile ramble around the hills of Bath. It was the first time I’d led the walking group and I have many positives to take from the whole experience. I’ll tell you about it another time because today, I’m going to reflect back one week to another brief outdoor adventure, with the day booked off work.

I took a 30-minute journey south to Burnham-on-Sea and it was mainly for sentimental reasons that are too personal to disclose on this blog. It was the first time I’d visited the seaside-town since a school trip two-decades ago and I’d been curious about revisiting the area for sometime. My return bought back a few memories and more positives to take from the day away from home.

All of the photos here were taken with my Nikon S8200 camera but some have been ‘enhanced’ through the power of Instagram.

This weekend, the National Trust are opening many of their doors around the country for free to the general public. If you read this in time and you’re interested in visiting a property, a recommend you have a read through this link and their terms and also, you need to print out a voucher to hand in upon your arrival.

I tried to participate in this a year ago but on the Sunday, when I went to Bath to meet up with a friend for the day… Upon my arrival though, it started hailstoning and the skies were anything but clear! That put paid to our plans to spend a little time outdoors and so, we ended exploring some of the city’s interiors (meaning an art gallery, a cafe, pub and restaurant).

The Georgian City of Bath, south-west UK.

So, this weekend has been desired for a very long time and, with clear skies and sunshine forecast for Saturday (today), I arranged plans with another friend to achieve the day I was hoping for a year ago.

If I look back, it’s more than three-long-years since I last splurged a serious amount of money (more than £35) on a quantity of sawn hardwoods! That’s quite a saddening statistic that makes me question what the heck I’ve been doing since I bought all that ash and walnut for the chair in my final year of college.

If I’m going to make a better effort to include some of my other interests on this blog then, I may as well start by giving you a glimpse in to some of the walks I went on and places I visited in 2012. There’s a basic ‘list’ of twelve in the slideshow below (enough to inspire someone to visit one a month) but there are several more I’ve not included here. I don’t intend to go back, digging through all my photos to write about each of these in the past tense. However, I do expect to revisit many of these sites (and more) in 2013 so, I’m sure you’ll get to read more of them in the future, if not now. 🙂

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Please feel free to ask me any questions you might have about these places. Most offer free parking facilities nearby; others may be run by the National Trust or a similar organisation. I’d quite like to go back and shoot some (brief) video footage of some of these places and I do wish I’d thought of that ahead of my birthday walk this past weekend.

I’d also like to send a reminder to all woodworkers near Somerset in the UK that Yandles’ annual Spring Woodworking Show takes places this weekend, on both Friday and Saturday. I’m planning to make my way down there on Friday afternoon and, if I can remember to grab my camera, I’ll take some photos of my own and perhaps also some video footage of various demonstrations (it’s usually very busy and crowded though).

If I’m going to have to clear out my workshop at some point this year then, I’m going to need to ensure that all of my machines can be moved easily, even if they only end up going in to the back of someone else’s car or van. Most of my machinery is already catered for in that respect. My mortiser will need looking at (that’s got to be close to 200kg in weight) but first, I’m turning my attention to the Scheppach TKU Site Saw I was given a few months ago.

Mobile Base for the Site Saw.

As soon as we slid (and scraped) it inside the door, I wanted to come up with a design for a mobile base that would allow me to easily lock it in position for cutting. I struggled on my own and so, have procrastinated until now. It’s thanks to a YouTube video (which you can watch below) that I’ve found my inspiration for this one.

Even though I finished the folding desk last week, I’d like to go back briefly in this post and look at a few areas that I haven’t already included. This was partly because I feared that my posts would become too long but actually, it had more to do with the fact that these photos which were ‘cut’ from the final edit were actually taken on my old camera, which leaves images in a different folder to my new camera’s recordings, on the SD card.

With a three-day Bank Holiday weekend already underway, I’m hoping to have this desk very close to completion by Monday night. I made it back in to the workshop yesterday afternoon for a couple of hours, after two-days of thought and reflection. As it turned out, un-jamming the belt sander wasn’t too difficult. I started by trying to remove the outer casing, before realising that it wasn’t going to budge. Turning it over again, I realised that you can remove a black plate from one side that exposes the rollers. Then, the front roller just slides out (don’t lose the spring!) and everything was freed with absolute ease.

By the way, yes, ‘un-jamming’ is in fact the technical term for this! 🙂